Gravedigger
by Lady Shockbox
Summary: Written as a classroom assignment. Grave digging was never in Waspinator's job description, and the death of a best friend is even harder to cope with when you're the one burying him. Oneshot. Beast Wars


Do I enjoy writing sad stories? _Yes_. I wrote this a few years ago back in ninth grade for my academy seminar class as a writing assignment. The course is mandatory for high school freshmen and we had journals where we would write prompts as directed by our professor. One day, the prompt that was on the board asked us to write a story about a favorite cartoon character_._ You can imagine that I went ballistic with squeaking joy, and that mental picture is otherwise entirely accurate to my general reaction. This fanfic was born as a result and, with some tweaking, is finally being posted. Beast Wars Transformers is not mine.

* * *

**Gravedigger, when you dig my grave**

**Could you make it shallow so that I can feel the rain?**

_Gravedigger_ - Dave Matthews Band

**i**

By the time Waspinator was finished, he was covered in dirt.

The sun was setting due east at such an angle that it burned a harsh crimson against the sky, treating it as though it were a deep red smear from oil pastels against a rough canvas. Surrounding the red closest to the descending sun was a vibrant orange, further lined by a pulsating yellow which further highlighted the sun so that it looked more like a fiery sphere crashing into the planet it gave heat and light to. Waspinator knew that was not true, but it did not stop the Predacon mech from awing at it when he first caught sight of it. It was not as if he could admire the spectacle for very long considering his heavy burden, but it did not stop him in that one moment. A flock of geese heading south for the winter bellowed and flew in their V shaped pattern against the canvas of the painted sunset. It was breathtaking. The throbbing glow of the sun threw itself over the landscape with a considerably persistent vigor but, in the wasp's opinion, it touched down so much better on the outcropping he had found out in the sector Tanna-16. He and Terrorsaur once went out there on a regular basis to watch the very same sunset, though it was Waspinator's _very_ personal judgment that it was so much more stunning that particular day. The outcropping itself sat below the mountain on a slight hill facing due west, and the glare of the unforgiving sun flared straight through the trees obscuring the horizon.

Waspinator loved digging holes. This was no understatement. His beast-mode had the instinct to do so since the particular species of wasp that he was unfortunate enough to scan lived in atypical underground burrows instead of the universally recognized paper nests that hung off the tree branches. There were often times that Waspinator would simply satisfy his boredom with making random three foot holes in Maximal territory. He convinced himself that he did this in the hope that an unsuspecting Maximal would accidentally misplace their footing, fall in, and break their shins - namely Cheetor, just because the prospect of the cheetah tripping at a full run and breaking all his legs was an oddly amusing morbid prospect - but he knew better. He did it because he thought it was ridiculously fun. If it was not sugarcane and shiny objects, come the Pitt or high water, it was damn well going to be _holes_. The situation _now_ however, under the painted ecstasy of the sunset, was much more different.

To put it bluntly, grave digging was never in his job description. Nor was it ever supposed to be.

He wiped his forehead roughly in an attempt to wipe away some of the sweat conjured by his organic half, but the youngest of the _Darkside's_ stranded Predacon crew only succeeded in creating a large smear of muddy dirt across his brow instead. The sun was continuing to descend into the horizon in the distance like a ball of fire sinking to the earth, burning blood red as if it were the very Pitt itself built in a sphere and _not_ a burning ball of gas billions of miles away. He had been digging the six foot deep grave all day without stopping for breaks or food - his beast-mode had objected against this doggedly, although Waspinator disregarded his inner wasp's urges entirely - but it took less than ten minutes to fill it back up with the same dirt he had unearthed earlier. Now the mound sat awkwardly protruding from the ground covering the mech buried beneath, and the red of the sunset made the dirt look as though it was a flaming orange mixed in with pinkish hues. Waspinator looked more carefully and saw that it looked almost as red as the scarlet flier that was once his partner.

_Almost._

Waspinator continued to look down at the freshly dug grave. Had he been burying anyone else, he would not have felt as _hopeless_ as he did now. It was almost sickly ironic he was burying his wingmate though. The grave itself was at the bottom of a partially dead tree that had lost its leaves in the colder climate that hailed the oncoming winter. Waspinator realized sadly that the flowers, when they _did_ bloom once again in the spring, would be a deep red... almost the same color as Terrorsaur's optics. A cross hung over the grave crookedly, nailed into the stump by Waspinator himself after he made it in the air conditioned safety of his own quarters. The first one he tried to make nearly caught fire from the superheated fumes of the lava pits, so then he went ahead and found better material to work with. Cherry wood was a far better substitute to birch and, once he was finished with it, he quickly took it out to Tanna and hung it before returning to the base to pick up Terrorsaur's body wrapped in that stupid white sheet.

_Terrorsaur's body._ The words made Waspinator suddenly shudder and he willed himself to look away from the place where his friend was buried. He tried desperately to remind himself that it was only his ex-wingmate's empty shell and not actually _him_, but the effect was lost on his young and already partially muddled mind.

"_Scorponok to Waspinator, do you copy?"_

Waspinator jumped with a start, nearly falling backwards onto his aft where he would have tipped backwards right off the side of the hill. The universe that hated him so much seemed to offer him so mercy in that one instance however, because he regained his balance before he could tumble into an undignified heap. Thankfully things were not going to get worse, Waspinator noted. At least for the time being. Fate had seemed to back off its usual habit of blowing the wasp mech to pieces with the consideration that his best friend had been killed in a battle against the Maximals the day before.

He found himself answering the hail before he realized what he was doing. "Wa-Wazzpinator here…"

His voice shook and hitched. That was when he realized he was crying. Tears slipped from his sky blue optics and stained his cheeks. With the realization of what he was doing, he reached up roughly with his dirt caked hands and vigorously rubbed at his optics to stop himself. It was to no avail, but he managed to get his breathing back under control to the point where he was sure his voice would not catch if he was prompted to speak again.

Scorponok, on the other end, seemed slightly taken aback. The other Predacons had never showed the wasp much contemplation before, although even _Waspinator_ had noticed their queer cautiousness when the youngest of the original _Darkside_ crew had dragged Terrorsaur's limp corpse back into the base. They had even gone as far as to help each other pry him off when he tried CPR on the scarlet pterosaur for the millionth time that awful night. Inferno had even offered to go as far as to stay with the "troubled nest mate" but Waspinator, deranged in hysterics, had outright refused.

Everyone had been shaken by the news of Terrorsaur's demise - Megatron was not _nearly_ as bad as Waspinator, though much more worse off than the rest of the Predacons - but Scorponok had definitely been the most awkward over it. He hated Terrorsaur with a passion while the flier was still alive and Terrorsaur hated him right back with an equally biting vigor, but his death had left the mechanic scorpion slightly ill at ease. This came about mostly when he tried to stir conversations up with Waspinator. The mechanic liked the wasp far better as a companion than the rest of the Predacons - this was either because the others were treacherous or attempting to steal his limelight as second in commander, bluntly referring to Inferno - but knowing that Waspinator and Terrorsaur were closer than identical twins made his attempts at contact with the wasp bumbling and discomfited. It obviously showed in the engineer's voice when he spoke through the comm. _"Waspinator? Waspinator, are you-?"_

"Wazzpinator is _fine,"_ the green and yellow mech snapped, buzzing low. It was a blatant lie of course. Waspinator was far from _fine_. He would never ever be _fine_ ever again. Not without Terrorsaur. Not _ever_ without Terrorsaur. His tone was a little more biting than he intended it, but it was only later that day that he realized that he sounded frighteningly like Terrorsaur. It might have either been an illusion of exhaustion or caused by his lack of water, but his voice sounded _highly_ reminiscent of Terrorsaur. It scared the wasp deeply.

"…_Waspinator?"_

Waspinator did not answer. He found that his vocalizer was being muted by his grief constricted throat. He was desperately forcing himself not to break down into tears. He might have been the youngest of the Predacons, but h forced himself to imagine that it was no excuse for him to resort to tears again. Terrorsaur would not have wanted it anyways.

Scorponok continued on speaking regardless of Waspinator's silence. _"I'm… sorry about what happened to Terrorsaur, Waspinator. Believe me, I... I really am."_

Waspinator snorted. It was a gesture he picked up from Terrorsaur those few times the red mech had scoffed at Waspinator's odd habit of dive bombing into sugarcane fields and randomly diving after shiny pieces of shrapnel the crimson flier sometimes tossed in his wingmate's direction for kicks. Waspinator also picked it up from his now dead partner after Waspinator dug and hole and got his wide beast-mode head stuck. The nod itself seemed ill tempered, yes, but Waspinator's insides were wrenching in an agonizing sadness. He spoke sternly, though not without a bitter grain of salt lingering in his tone. "Wazzpinator will be back to base in ten cycles."

There was an unsure pause over the link. The situation had gotten uncomfortable for Scorponok again. Without another word, the Predacon broke the connection before Waspinator could. Waspinator was glad he cut it when he did, because that was when the green mech finally broke.

He fell heavily onto his knees and let out a loud sob, letting his wings shudder harshly. Terrorsaur had been a companion when he needed him most and now he was _dead_. The mere thought that he was never going to see his partner _ever again_ drove him to curl in on himself and brace his forearms and forehead against the cool ground while he was ravaged over by his own self-pity. It was absolutely _awful_. Waspinator had just _talked to him_ the previous day. He couldn't exactly remember the primary subject of their little conversation, but he knew that he had talked to Terrorsaur nonetheless. They had both broken out laughing about something incessantly silly - maybe it was about Megatron's equally stupid rubber duck - when their radios chimed regarding the fact that the Maximals had invaded their territory using experimental energy signature dampeners. The battle had been fleeting only because the Maximals were not fully armed, but the battle had reached a momentary crescendo when Dinobot had Waspinator pinned. The wasp had been facing off against the far larger ex-Predacon before fate decided it was going to make the mech trip and fall backwards onto his back. Unable to escape, the wasp could only watch as Dinobot brought his sword back to slice at Waspinator's arm.

Terrorsaur either hadn't been thinking or was thinking too much for Waspinator's sake, because he threw himself in the way of Dinobot's plunging blade no more than an instant later. The sword had impaled his spark chamber and the scarlet mech had dropped dead right on the spot. The battle abruptly ended for both factions when Waspinator screamed a blood curdling shriek over the loss of his best friend.

The mere thought of Terrorsaur's death made him cry even harder, and he stayed there poised under the cherry tree at the foot of the grave even after the sun finally set.

He was still covered in dirt.

**Fin**


End file.
